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Cognition
Course leader:
Dr Philip Fine
philip.fine@buckingham.ac.uk
One term (15 units)
This is taken in the first year and covers the main areas of cognitive psychology, i.e. study of the mind and how it processes information. Its aim is to teach how cognitive research is carried out and what we know about attention, memory, language and thought from a number of sources of evidence.
On completion of this course students should have a sound understanding of how evidence from experimental psychology in particular, as well as from neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology (the study of brain damage) and cognitive science (computational models) converge to give us an understanding of the workings of the mind. Students also carry out and write up a practical experiment on memory as well as a hands-on session on problem solving.
It contains the following topic areas:
- History of, methods in and approaches to cognitive psychology
- Memory - structures and processes; working memory; everyday memory
- Attention - focused and divided attention; automatic processing
- Language understanding
- Thought - mental representation and imagery; judgment and decision making
- Problem solving and expertise
- Cognition and emotion
This course is assessed by both course work (40%) and written examination (60%).
Main texts:
- Eysenck, M.W. & M.T. Keane, Cognitive psychology, a student's handbook (5th ed., Hove: Psychology Press, 2005). ISBN: 1-84169-359-6.
- Quinlan, P. & B. Dyson, Cognitive psychology (Harlow: Pearson, 2008). ISBN: 978-0-13-129810-1.